Williams leads UConn to 100th straight regular-season win

UConn’s Napheesa Collier battles for a rebound with UCF’s Masseny Kaba (5) during the first half on Tuesday.

UConn’s Napheesa Collier battles for a rebound with UCF’s Masseny Kaba (5) during the first half on Tuesday.

Photo: John Woike / TNS

Photo: John Woike / TNS

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UConn’s Napheesa Collier battles for a rebound with UCF’s Masseny Kaba (5) during the first half on Tuesday.

UConn’s Napheesa Collier battles for a rebound with UCF’s Masseny Kaba (5) during the first half on Tuesday.

Photo: John Woike / TNS

Williams leads UConn to 100th straight regular-season win

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STORRS — One of the most famous sayings during Geno Auriemma’s Hall of Fame coaching career at UConn was his infamous, “we have Diana and you don’t” during legendary Diana Taurasi’s heyday with the Huskies.

While Auriemma stopped short of that refrain after a rough and tumble affair with visiting UCF, he was quick to point out that the game turned into a runaway largely because of the energy provided by senior Gabby Williams.

Williams was not one of the five UConn players to score in double figures but nobody had a bigger impact with how much better the nation’s top-ranked team played in the second half than the reigning national defensive player of the year as the Huskies rolled to the 80-44 win before a crowd of 5,482 at Gampel Pavilion.

“The game basically came down in the third quarter to Gabby Williams completely, single-handedly (turning) the game around,” Auriemma said after the Huskies became the first NCAA Division I women’s basketball program to win 100 consecutive regular-season games. “Once that started to happen, and we started getting out and getting into our stuff before they had a chance to set their defense up, the layups, the mid-range (jumpers) and 3s started dropping, now all of a sudden it is a different game. The biggest difference from first half to second half was Gabby Williams.

“It wasn’t something you draw up in plays. There isn’t a play that you draw up that Gabby runs that then says this will change the game, that is not what great players do. Great players change games by making great plays . What are you are going to do when she graduate? I have to come up with better plays.”

No play better illustrated Williams’ impact than when she reached up to snare Aliyah Gregory’s attempted entry pass. Williams got the ball to Crystal Dangerfield and finished with a stylish transition layup with 5:21 left in the third quarter to put the Huskies up by 17.

“She kind of telegraphed the pass, I just went up to grab it, saw Crystal,” Williams said. “Me and Crystal have that good enough chemistry that she saw me coming too. We just needed a play to get us going.

“I went to the bench and said we need more plays like (that) so, Crystal got going, Lou (Katie Lou Samuelson) got going on defense and it just kind of built the momentum.”

UConn (14-0, 4-0 in the American Athletic Conference) didn’t emerge from the locker room at halftime until 23 seconds remained on the clock because Auriemma had a message he wanted to get across to his players. The G-rated translation was that his players needed to stop expecting the officials to prevent UCF from playing a physical style of basketball. Once that happened, the game turned into another showcase of the Huskies’ brilliance.

“I thought everybody was caught up in the physicality. Shots weren’t falling, so I was trying to show that we could (do) more than just knock down shots and turn things up on the defensive end,” Williams said. “We have to learn that before we learn it the hard way. It was good for us to have a game that we didn’t win it in the first five minutes. It was a good test for us.”

Azura’ Stevens, the only bench player to see time in the game until the fourth quarter, had 19 points and 10 rebounds while Williams contributed 13 rebounds, five assists and two steals in addition to eight points. Kia Nurse had 13 points, Napheesa Collier had 12 points, five rebounds and three blocked shots, including the 150th of her career. Samuelson and Dangerfield had 11 points each for UConn.